Right now, let's say good morning to the host of Home on KFI. It's our house and this week our yard whisper Dean Sharp morning.
Dean, Good morning Amy.
That we're gonna talk about the birds and the bees and the plants in the trees and getting your house and your home.
Ready for spring.
Right spring is here. We got this weird spring weather. I mean I should say weird just because I don't think we're used to having such a full spring as what we're having.
You know, it's.
Sunny one minute, half an hour later, it's sprinkling again, and then it gets cold and it's warming. I mean, we're having a real spring in southern California this year.
Nice and it's time. It's time to get ready.
People here in SOCW we don't so much think about spring cleaning as we think about getting out into our yards and getting everything tuned up.
This is gonna be the year. This is the year that I'm going.
To have more life in my yard, more birds, song and all of that kind of thing.
And we're going to help you do that this.
Weekend, all right, And so let's just look at because there's lots of factors to come into play and there are good bugs, there are bad bugs that you need to consider as you're putting your yard together.
Absolutely, mosquitoes are on everybody's mind right now because with the cold and the additional bits of rain and moisture come opportunities for mosquitoes to get really active once the weather starts warming up. And mosquitoes actually aren't that difficult to handle if you know what to do and what notot probably the biggest thing that I warn people not to do is don't waste money on bugs appers, and unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation out there about mosquitos.
In fact, if you go into Amazon, which normally can be a really reliable source of information and products, but if you type mosquito control into Amazon, you're going to get a ton of references and hits on UV bug zappers. And I think they make everybody satisfied because at nighttime, you're sitting around and you know, you hear that.
I got another one.
Here's the thing, though, I'm not going to tell you that no mosquito has ever been killed by a bug zapper, but if it has happened, it's totally accidental because mosquitoes aren't attracted to UV light, not the way that other insects are. They are not attracted to that UV black light in the bug zapper. So you're really wasting your money when it comes to mosquitos on that kind of stuff.
What mosquitoes are attracted to are us exhaling. They see co two plumes above sources of animals, and so they can smell it and they zero in on us and they find us because we exhale.
Okay, all right, here's something bigger that also has wings that you want in your yard, and that's birds, absolutely, and you can attract them too, right.
You can.
You can totally attract birds. Birds, though, I got to tell you, are attracted once a yard is really functioning as a habitat for them. There are a lot of birds in our area, like in my neighborhood. There are a ton more birds in my yard than there are in most of my neighbor's yard because we've worked really
hard at building a habitat. And habitat means that you've got water for them, that you've got food for them, that you've got places of cover for them, nesting areas for them, and that things are happening on a native level. And I say native, because really the beginning of the food cycle for birds starts down in the soil with worms and insects again, and unless you've got native plants going on your property, you're not actually going to have many insects. And a lot of people are like, good,
I'm glad, I hate insects. Yeah, but the birds show up because they know that there's that kind of stuff happening in your yard. And the fact of the matter is that our insects in our area have very very narrow diets, they have very very narrow needs, and they have no use for non native plants.
Interesting, So you're going to be talking about the circle of life in your own backyard coming up all week in long.
And I will holding my little cat up and we will be singing the Lion King song.
Oh okay, I love that. Okay, So did you know what tomorrow is? It has to do with what you're talking about tomorrow? No naked gardening day.
Naked gardening day.
Yep, you know anything about it?
That's not happening, Okay.
And I think San Francisco is the top rated city in at least California for naked gardening.
Yeah, why am I not surprised. I don't know.
All right, Okay, you can listen to all of this is going to be such fascinating information as you're putting your backyard and your front yard and your habitats together to make your home more hospitable to our little birds and bees. And we'll tell you, I'm sure you're going to be talking about bees a lot more too. We don't have time to do it today, but I know that you're a big backer of bees, and I love bees too. So that is tomorrow from six to eight am,
and then again on Sunday from nine to noon. And it's called Home. It's right here on KFI with our very own Dean Sharp. You can also follow Dean at Home with Dean. That's right, Thank you, Dan Sharp.